X-Men:The Next-to-Last Stand

This afternoon I took my two younger brothers, a friend of theirs, and Berny, our exchange student from Chile, to see X-Men 3:The Last Stand. (Huh, I'm strangely unembarassed to admit that.)

How was the movie? It was what I like to call SICK. What does "sick" mean? Sick is the Golden Gate Bridge picked up and moved for one's personal convenience. Sick is Hugh Jackman and his moussed hair poured into black leather. Sick is electrocuting someone until their (seriously unflattering) lip ring sizzles. I highly recommend it, and not just for people who could really use some superpowers right about now.

Oh, and you MUST stay until the VERY end, past the credits. It takes forever, but I promise you won't be sorry. They set us up for a fourth one like they're Steve Nash, setting up. . .well, shit, I've exhausted my basketball knowledge with that one. So you're just going to have to trust me on this one.

I did notice something totally weird, though. You know how, at the very end of movie credits, they have the "thank you" section? And they're always thanking, like, the City of Vancouver or something? Well, at the end of X-Men 3 they thanked Kiehl's (Since 1851). Kiehl's makes my hair stuff and, while it's very good hair stuff, in fact their Creme with Silk Groom is the only thing that keeps me from walking around doing a constant Whoopi Goldberg impression, I cannot for the life of me imagine how Kiehl's (Since 1851) contributed to the making of X-Men 3:The Last Stand.

Wait, I take that back. I can totally imagine situations involving Hugh Jackman, Hugh Jackman's hair, me, and some Kiehl's Creme with Silk Groom. Situations that contribute to HIS last stand, if you know what I mean (and I think you do).

Arrrggghhh. . . .ya free Saturday night?

So my mom has instituted a new ban on swearing. (Yes I am a nearly-23-year-old and I'm living with my mom. Get over it. I have. Kind of.)

Actually, it's not really a ban, it's more like a tendency to squawk "Laura!" in shocked tones whenever a curse word escapes my lips. I think it's sort of funny, given that everyone in this household is 18 or nearly so, but it's probably a good thing. I cuss a lot, and it's not very attractive, and who knows when I'll find myself hosting a Saturday-morning children's show or in a job interview for the Christian Science Monitor or having tea with the Queen of England, or some similar situation in which swearing like a pirate would be inappropriate. (I really like pirates though. I won't let my mom get in the way of that, I promise.)

So, in an effort to get it all out of my system;
@$#&?*&;*&^%#%#@@:!@#$@!%$$@@#$">!@#$@! %$$@@#$:?* *&>amp;$#@!@@$">?*<*&$#@!@@#$#@ !$#@%}\&*&%$!#@$%%!

In other news, my birthday is in exactly a week. I expect outpourings of presents, preferably in monetary and/or pink convertible Beetle form, because I'm just turning 23 and no one in my family gives a rat's ass (not that I blame them, it's understandably difficult to get excited when an unemployed wannabe writer living in her parents' garage turns a boring age).

(I don't particularly give a rat's ass myself, but that doesn't mean I don't want lots of presents.)

(Wait, is "ass" a swear word? No one gives a HOOT, is what I meant to say.)

AI: Absence (of) Intelligence

I have nothing of interest to talk about today. . .I'm mainly trying to distract myself from the AOL Welcome page because it is trying to tell me who has won American Idol. I don't want to hear who has won American Idol from the stupid AOL Welcome page, I want to spend two precious hours of my life on the couch while a scarily tan pixie-sprite tries to drag a 5-second announcement out into an actual career. You know, like normal people.

Famous Instructor Dings Mercedes? Fat Insecure Danish Male?

Yesterday I took the bus and the train and my feet up to the city - that would be San Francisco, for those of you not from the area and therefore not familiar with our weird tendency to refer to SF as if were were farmers from a small conservative town in Iowa seeing off the prettiest girl in town, heading to the big city on a midnight train to be a star instead of marrying the sweet but unexciting farmer's son she'd dated since 7th grade, off to learn life's lessons the hard way, and, while she's at it, wear a lot of ripped tights and make friends with the hard-edged Latina city girls.

I had an "informational interview" at FIDM, pronounced Fidum by those in the know (which now includes me). That stands for the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, if you are among the 90% of people reading this who know nothing, and care even less, about the fashion industry. I could be really excited about it - they have a great 15-month postgraduate program, a great reputation, a great career center, great connections, a great campus, and a great history of placing graduates at great places. The only problem is the same thing that's ALWAYS a problem for me: they also charge a great price. And I mean "great" as in "huge, enormous, stupendously large, elephantine," not "great" as in "good."

So I'm trying to be practical and not get too excited about it, even though it seems like it could be perfect for me. (I totally resisted the urge to say it could be "great" for me, aren't you proud?) But it was a good interview and this school is one of the best fashion schools in the country, so I'd be lying if I said the little seeds of hope and ambition and excitement haven't already been sown. (I ALSO just resisted the urge to make a lame sown/sewn fashion-type joke there. I think that shows great maturity.)

So, everybody cross your fingers that my parents/fairy godmother/the California State Lotto/some bank will come through and enable me to pay for it. (Also, buy me a present because my burfday is in 11 days! Yay!)

SHOCKED and SADDENED

In a measure of how far I have sunk, I am going to write a post about "The O.C."

WTF?? Is Marissa dead? Does Mischa Barton think she's too good for THE BEST SHOW EVER? This is a sad, sad day, people. Besides, I heard it was some non-important character like Johnny that died. Fox says the show is coming back next season. . .but without Marissa? I, for one, cannot see how that will work or be at all watchable. (Do you like this morally indignant and passionately unselfconscious thing I'm doing?)

I invite speculation, because in absence of boyfriend, job, or recognizable social life, this seems really vitally important.

"The Weed-Whacker" Brings Back Particularly Vivid Memories

It is now a requirement of viewing this blog that you watch the video below. Several times would be preferable. And if you don't laugh hysterically and also recognize yourself every Saturday night, then I'm not sure I want to be your friend any longer.

Happy Muvver's Day!

Hope everyone gave their mommy a hug or at least a phone call today! Just think of all the wonderful things your mommy has done for you, starting with giving you life by pushing a bowling ball through a. . .well, a place that is much, much smaller than a bowling ball.

Now, back to me.

So it turns out that lying on a beach drinking beer and vodka and whiskey and eating bacon baguette sandwiches can cause one to gain rather a large amount of weight. Who knew? Therefore, I'm embarking on a frighteningly strict diet, starting yesterday, wherein I attempt to morph myself in to a rabbit. No, something skinnier, but with a similar diet. A ferret? I actually have no idea what ferrets eat.

Anyway. I've decided the best way to keep myself motivated is to talk about it ad nauseaum. That way people will ask me how it's going and give me pointedly disapproving looks if they catch me snarfing a heaping bowl of fettucine Alfredo. Which is annoying and unpleasant. . .but so is an ass the size of the Indian sub-continent.

So, feel free, if we see each other about town, to smack the hand holding the garlic cheese bread.

Tabasco Sweet Tabasco

Several times in the last few days I've thought I might discontinue this exercise in self-absorption. Seems pointless, now that instead of Thai sunsets and Cambodian temples, all I see is my parents' garage and occasionally the Nob Hill in Watsonville.

My sister encouraged me to keep on keeping on, if only to keep my already meager writing skills from getting rusty. "Just find funny and interesting things in everyday life" she said encouragingly. Which would be encouraging, if there were funny and/or interesting things happening in my everyday life.

But yesterday, something funny happened. One of those random Twilight-Zone moments that make you go, "Is this really happening, or is it all that peyote I've been smoking?" Like when you wake up after a one-night stand with Colin Farrell and he starts crying and says he loves you. . .what, that's never happened to you?

So my mom and I decided to go out to dinner, to this funky-dee-funk place in Watsonville called Mariscos. Or Los Mariscos, something like that. Basically, one of those ghetto Mexican places with 7 different kinds of hot sauce and red-checkered tablecloths. The place was small and semi-crowded, but we didn't take a good look around until we'd been seated. . .and realized we were, by a generous margin, the whitest people at any of the 8 tables. Also, the only women. Also, the only ones above 5'4". It was like the Annual Convention of Oaxacan Midget Cowboys in there. People were looking at us like you might look at a pair of Martians coming in all slimy and sitting down and ordering chips and salsa. A pair of tall, white, female Martians.

Wait, it gets better. Halfway through dinner (garlic sauteed in shrimp), four short brown cowboys appeared from nowhere (literally. I was watching the door and they didn't come in from outside, I'd have noticed.). Four short brown cowboys with large brown instruments- and I'm not talking about guitars. I'm talking about a stand-up bass bigger than the man trying to play it, and a whole set of drums, and. . .other overly-loud musical instruments of assorted types. And they gathered around a booth and started playing exuberant Mexican music. Loudly. And exuberantly. And everyone started clapping and, get this, SINGING ALONG.

Like this loud exuberant impenetrable live Mexican-Watsonvillian foursome in Mariscos was their FAVORITE BAND EVER.

And it made me so, so, so very glad to be home. Because where else would you find a live mariachi band playing their Greatest Hits in a mediocre 8-table funky Mexican restaurant? I'll tell you where. . .only in Watsonville.

THIS. . . .

THIS is a woman in pain. Also, a nursing bra. But mostly, in SERIOUS EXISTENTIAL ANGUISH.

They SAID You Can Never Go Home Again. . . .I Wish

Disclaimer: it's a wondiferous thing my parentals did, loaning me enough money to get home. And accepting me in to their home (for the 3rd time since I "moved out") (well, accepting me in to garage. Close enough.). And feeding me and all that. I appreciate it, I REALLY do, and I know they didn't have to.

But this whole living-at-home-again thing? IS REALLY NOT WORKING FOR ME.

It's crowded here (my brother Bo returned from Chile 3 days before I did. Before I returned from Australia, I mean, not Chile. I've never been to Chile.). I'm sleeping in the garage, which would be fine except there are also small animals sleeping in the garage, because all the bedrooms are full of people, either large messy teenage boys or neat but teenage girls or parental units.

Plus Bo and I have gotten used to more independence and, though motherly and well-intentioned, our mother's insistence on stuff like doing chores and not swearing is difficult to deal with. Not like, say, cancer is difficult to deal with, of course, but you know what I mean.

So, if anyone out there wants to give me a job, preferably one that doesn't involve manual labor, selling clothes to rich housewives, or creepy old bosses and pays all out of proportion with the actual work involved, that would just great.

Short but Sweet(er)

I've deleted my last post because it made my mom mad. That's all I'm going to say about that.

So, coming home on Thursday. Taking it in turns to be really, really excited (Sid!, Bo and Alex, Julia, Kelly, Emilie, parmesan Goldfish, Paradise Beach Grill, my entire wardrobe, Safeway brand pretzels) and really, really bummed out (um, Australia. What else do I have to say?). I still don't know what I'm going to do with my life, I don't really have a bedroom at my parent's house, and I'm broke as a joke (except there's nothing funny about it - broke as an inappropriately racist joke, or something).

But I'm not going to let myself get depressed about it. I'm sure everything will turn out for the best.